


'Til It's Gone

by cjwritergal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Not polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjwritergal/pseuds/cjwritergal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its always the simple things she misses the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til It's Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Roy, Riza, Maes, and Gracia hanging out. Beware of angst.
> 
> Compliant with any of the FMA canons, no spoilers beyond Hughes's fate.
> 
> This hasn't been beta-ed, as it is so short.

* * *

It was a regular night, nothing exciting or extraordinary. Before shadows stared at her in the darkness, before she knew the Elric Brothers, before immortal soldiers and chimeras and gold-toothed doctors that delighted in making Roy Mustang scream.

Maes and Gracia Hughes have not been married long, but it has long been a tradition of theirs to invite herself and the Colonel over for dinner. Truthfully, its one of the things Riza looks forward to all week. Tonight is no different, and in many ways it is a carbon copy of all the other nights with the Hughes family.

Maes invites them in, all smiles and handshakes and "good to see yous" as if they hadn't just seen him earlier that day.

Gracia cooks something that smells delicious from the moment they walk in, and gives both of them a hug, and swats her husband out of the kitchen before he manages to light himself on fire.

(The statement is funny, but also spoken from experience. To this day Riza has no idea how it happened despite being there to witness it, but it did.)

Roy, of course, acts terribly irritated by Hughes's cheerfulness and excitement at showing them pictures of himself and Gracia doing various things, from going on dates to painting their house, but by the end of the evening all four of them are red-faced with laughter (and more than a little alcohol).

Maes teases them about their closeness and Riza fires back with soft comebacks that often make him half fall out of his chair in surprise while Roy looks at her with amusement and something like pride. Later, she and Gracia drink tea and talk while Roy and Maes do the dishes, and she almost feels as though they all live together, and she'd be lying if she said she hadn't had a desire for that to be an actuality once or twice.

She's known Hughes since the war, and Gracia for a far shorter period of time, but already the feel irreplaceable in her life. A constant. If her relationship with Roy can be compared to food and drink (something that helps her survive, and that she wants and needs in equal measure) than her relationship with them can be compared to the sun rising: somethingt she takes pleasure in knowing will be there every morning.

Weeks, months, (though it feels like years) later, as she stares at the grave of Maes Hughes, hears and feels Gracia and Elysia crumple, as she watches Roy cry over his - their - best friend, it is those nights she remembers, and that routine that she misses the most.

 


End file.
